When Marco came to, he was in the same position as when he blacked out: lying on his side, clutching his badly smashed arm.

The darkness he was used to was punctuated by the flaming torch Kai had held. The doors to the dungeon were shut and locked again. Marco listened: silence. No footsteps or shouts from outside. How much time had passed?

Marco cast his mind back but the last thing he could remember was being thrown against the wall. As this memory hit him, so did a headache so strong it felt as though his head was being boured into with a power drill.

Slowly, he inched his way along the floor, trying not to jarr his arm, and reached out for the torch with the other one. He grasped it and lifted it with difficultly. His arm shook with the effort to hold it aloft, but he forced himself to a kneeling position and held the torch in the air. Marco used the light to sweep the walls and check to make sure there really wasn't anything on them. The only thing he found was a smear of dried dark blood on the jagged piece of rock, which came from his own hand. He looked down at his hand and was surprised to see how large and deep the cut was; it didn't just afflict his palm, but ran across some of his fingers and down along his wrist. His entire hand and forearm were drenched in blood.

'Oh boy,' thought Marco. He next used the torch to inspect his broken arm.

Luckily, the bone didn't pierce the skin, but it was horribly obvious how badly broken it was: the tan skin all around his elbow was mottled with colourful bruising and was hugely swollen. Marco knew enough about first aid to know that it must have been at least overnight since Kai and Teesh, for his arm to look like that. That meant that whatever had distracted them was either over and they had forgotten about him, or it was still undergoing.

Marco sighed and looked around helplessly. He just wanted to know what was going on!

Fortunately, (or unfortunately- depends on your outlook,) he didn't have to wait long.

-

It was a few hours later when Marco heard footsteps approaching the dungeon. They stopped outside the door, he heard a heavy, clunking sound, and they slowly swung creakily open to reveal Toffee.

He sniffed and chortled when he saw Marco.

"I'm going to fire Kai and Teesh," he muttered to himself, goodnaturedly. "Can't even follow simple orders. But no matter. To be honest I was quite hoping I would be the one who eventually killed you."

Marco coughed and tried to clear his throat. He managed to choak out quietly,

"W...wait..."

His voice was weak and ragged.
Toffee paused in walking towards him.

"What it is?" He asked.

Marco took a deep breath. The pain in his head, stomach and arm seared and tears stung his eyes.

"Whha..ts ha-ah-ppeni'?" He breathed, not able to continue and bursting into a violent coughing fit. He was not surprised when he tasted metal and a second later a few drops of blood came with his bone-rattling coughs.

Toffee considered him.

"Yes..." He said finally. "Yes, I suppose if you're going to die, I can humour you and grant you your last wish. I'll tell you what's happening."

He sat down cross legged in front of Marco and promptly took the torch from his bloody hand.

"Well, nothing happened for the first few nights since you've been a prisoner. But I didn't know whether someone would try and get you out, so I didn't really want to wait in doing you in. I sent Teesh and Kai, as I'm sure you know- but they were clearly too slow, and were interrupted before they could finish the job. Kai's work, I'm guessing?" He added, pointing to Marco's arm.

Marco reddened and nodded.

"He's always been too heavy handed," Toffee sighed. Marco didn't really appreciate being spoken about as though he was contraband, but he didn't and probably couldn't speak again, and kept his mouth shut.

"Anyway," continued Toffee, "the distraction which renders you continuously alive was none other than your dear friend Star. I was sure she would turn up at some point. She didn't disappoint; in fact she went the whole hog and brought that rich demon prince."
He saw Marco's expression change and his lip curled.

"Shall I tell you what happened next? I think I'd better had. Well, they burst into the castle. They'd made a potion to find you- not a half bad one, either- and they'd used dark magic. Quite impressive." Toffee grinned, his face twisted, looking more like a crocodile just before it devoured an elephant calf than a lizard.

"Yes, I think they expected it to take them directly to you. Instead, because of the magical protection on this dungeon, it took them to the banquet hall. The battle was most entertaining, as I'm sure you can imagine," drawled Toffee in a bores voice. "But... I got bored, so after a while I just killed them both."

Marco stopped breathing.

No.

No.

He was lying. He had to be lying. Oh, please, God, let him be lying.

Toffee saw Marco's face contort in anguish. His body was telling him to cry- he wanted to cry- he was trying to cry- to show some form of his emotion apart from a faint choking noise in his throat and his face twisted in sorrow. But he simply had no fluids to cry with. He was just too dehydrated. And it hurt him.

Toffee saw all of this, and he laughed.

And then he took out a knife, and, still laughing, he sunk it into Marco's stomach.